


A Good Idea At the Time

by voxmyriad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Gen, It's dangerous to go alone, Shameless terrifying amounts of fluff, Take this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxmyriad/pseuds/voxmyriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean saves a kitten from a fire. They bond. Sam takes video.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Idea At the Time

**Author's Note:**

> I got enabled into writing a kitten fic awhile ago. This is the result.

What the hell was he supposed to do with this?

It had started off normal enough - Goddamn, if Dean had a buck for every time he’d said that, he could probably go a few nights without fleecing - and then it had gotten weird. Sometime in between then and now, after the nest had been emptied and the barn had been torched, and now, in the hotel and wincing as he carefully swept a rough washcloth over a blistered shoulder, he’d acquired a curious new set of eyes.

“Ow! Goddammit, quit that!” The amulet got plucked away from a batting paw. “More trouble’n you’re worth,” he growled at intent, curious, wide, unblinking gray-green eyes.

“Dean.”

Dean glowered at his reflection; he knew that voice. That was Sam’s “I know I shouldn’t laugh, so I’m trying not to, but I’m going to lose that fight pretty soon” voice.

“What?” he snapped as he plucked up the nuisance and set it on the floor. A muffled scrabbling just indicated that it had already regained the bathroom counter and Dean straightened in exasperation as the kitten reached up to bat at the amulet again.

“What is that?” Sam leaned in the doorway, arms folded, the smirk matching the voice.

“It’s our baby sister, Sam. Knew you were tired of being the only girl.” Dean’s jaw tightened as he swept the washcloth over another soot-stain.

Sam rolled his eyes and yanked the washcloth away. “Will you let me do that- hey!” He pulled his hand away, staring at the reddening tracks along the back. “She scratched me!”

“Cat-fights already, Sammy?” Dean smirked as he took the advantage, snatched the washcloth back, and shoved his brother out the door. “Good girl,” he murmured absently, running a finger over impossibly soft, fluffy gray fur. “Or whatever. You tell ‘im.”

Incredibly, the tiny motel bathroom filled with a purr that shouldn’t have come out of something that scrawny and Dean paused in cleaning up the aftermath of the unexpected half-full propane tank to listen. “Jesus. You sound bigger’n Sammy.”

Muffled, through the door: “It’s Sam!”

Dean snorted and slammed a fist against the bathroom door. “Listening in on private conversations ain’t polite, _Sammy_!” he called back.

A little exasperated now: “It’s a kitten, how philosophical are you getting?”

“Oh, in the deep end now. Real meaning-of-life stuff here. Right?” he addressed the kitten, who - impossibly - seemed to purr even _louder_.

“...Is that the _kitten_?”

“It’s giving me lessons. I gotta concentrate. Shut up, you’ll screw with my breathing.”

When Sam didn’t answer, Dean assumed he’d either gotten fed up with having a conversation through a door or he’d actually taken Dean at his word. He wasn’t sure which one was more amusing.

The kitten jumped down as Dean finished cleaning up, sitting in front of the closed door and looking at him impatiently. “Sorry, Princess,” he smirked, opening the door and watching as it strutted out. “You’re welcome,” he added in an undertone that probably shouldn’t have sounded quite so sullen. It was just a kitten, after all.

A kitten that had appeared around the corner of the old barn just as the flames licked down from the hayloft and Dean had realized that not all the cylinders sitting against the faded-red wall were empty milk-cans. He’d hardly heard Sam’s panicked call as he’d dove forward and scooped it inside his unfortunately-not-leather jacket, taking off at a dead run just as the propane caught. He’d ended up burned through to the skin in a few spots, not as many as otherwise, could have been worse, but Sam had driven back to the motel.

Dean hadn’t even remembered the kitten until Sam had reached into his jacket, intending to set his gun on the table before getting the jacket and ruined shirt off, and had retreated again with a yelp and a pinpoint of blood on his finger. “Dean, what the _hell_ , something in your jacket just _bit_ me!”

And now it had hopped onto the table and was wandering over to the guns, picking its way delicately across the cracked Formica and sniffing at the ivory handle of his .45. He grinned as he followed and dropped into the chair, for once interested enough in something else that he didn’t mind Sam fussing over him with burn ointment and bandages, even though they’d be better off left open. “Good taste,” he said, setting a hand on the table and tipping his head as the kitten nearly skidded in its haste to rub its face against his fingers.

“She actually _likes_ you,” Sam muttered, shooting the kitten a dark look; his right hand held two battle scars already.

“She?” Dean asked absently as the kitten’s rough-soft tongue took care of a smudge he’d missed on the back of his hand.

“Yeah, it’s a girl.”

Dean tipped his head back, brow quirked inquisitively. “You ask her or something?”

Sam flushed a bit and didn’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Jess liked cats,” he said quietly as he smoothed on the last bandage and picked up a rag to wipe his fingers clean of leftover ointment. “We went to the humane society a couple times. Thought about picking one out.”

“Oh.” Dean looked back at the kitten, which had seated itself next to his hand - Jesus, it was tiny, it’d fit in his palm, it’d get _lost_ in Sam’s - and ran a finger over its head, prompting another rising tidal wave of rumbly contentment. “How’s it so _loud_?” he mused, shaking his head a bit.

Sam shrugged, not looking at it. At some point soon, he’d tear Dean a new one for risking his life saving a damn _kitten_. Or, well, maybe he wouldn’t; it seemed...kind of assholish. It was just a kitten, after all, it wasn’t like it knew - _she_ knew - anything about demons, or vampires working for demons, or haunted farmhouses, or angels and fate and fucking _destiny_ and the end of the world.

...It was staring at him. Sam stared back, challengingly, and then felt silly for rising to the kitten’s bait when it licked a paw and ignored him. “What are you calling her?” he asked as he repacked the first-aid kit and made a mental note to stop in the drugstore in town for a few supplies before they headed east in the morning.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked as he turned his hand over and the kitten put a paw in the middle of his palm, tentatively, giving him a suspicious look.

Sam rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Dean, you’re gonna let her go? After setting yourself on fire?”

“No, I’m not letting her go, she could get...I dunno, eaten or something.” There were things that ate kittens, right? Wild animals? “Or hit by a car or something,” he amended with a one-shouldered shrug.

“Fine, so what are you calling her?” It was like talking to a bag of rocks sometimes. Sam didn’t plan on addressing the practicalities right now, like _Where is she staying?_ and _Is a litterbox going in the backseat?_ He was tired.

Dean thought about it, as he watched tiny pinprick claws dig lightly into his palm. He could hardly feel them through the gun- and machete-calluses. “Dunno yet,” he said as she lay down, pinning his palm to the table, and looked up at him again. She was basically weightless, hardly more than the gray fluff of her fur, and he smiled in spite of himself as he imagined how pathetic she’d look wet. All scraggly, and oh, she’d _glare_ , she had a Winchester glare already.

He freed his hand, not without an objecting sound from the kitten, and wandered over to the bed, shedding his jeans and sprawling on his back. His burns did feel better, he acknowledged reluctantly, then jumped as he felt pinprick-claws on his stomach. The kitten glared, admonishing him for abandoning her just when she’d been comfortable, then stalked up his chest to the pillow, where she promptly curled into a tiny, perfect ball between his shoulder and neck. The purring rose again, right against his ear, and Dean was uncomfortably aware of a growing impulse to stay still, so he didn’t disturb her.

“Dude.”

His eyes flicked over to Sam and narrowed at the soppy look on Sam’s face. “What?” he growled, but it didn’t help.

“Do you have any idea how _sweet_ you look right now?”

“Sam-”

“Seriously, that’s _adorable_.”

“Shut the hell up, Sam.”

“I should really record this for posterity.”

“I’ll record me kicking your ass for posterity!” Dean threatened, then froze as the kitten placed one paw casually on his neck and stretched, flexing little tiny impossibly sharp claws.

He was never gonna live this down, he thought helplessly as he watched Sam send the picture amid a torrent of increasingly creative, anatomically-unlikely threats. His phone buzzed less than a minute later.

`looks like you got yrself a girlfriend. nicelooking gal. dont screw this one up, she could be the one. -Bobby`

“I’m gonna choke you until you can’t remember what breathing _is_ ,” Dean threatened, but Sam just flicked a loose blanket over him and turned off the light.

“Yeah, yeah. G’night, you two.”

“...Night, Sam.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal, now for your AO3 viewing pleasure.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Good Idea at the Time [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/836473) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




End file.
